Welcome to Lalaith's Middle-earth Science Pages!

This page collects all additional essays on J.R.R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth that have not been included in the books. You know, some collectors prefer to have anything related to Tolkien standing in their bookshelves. Hence, I have collected expanded and updated versions of the histories of the lesser Men of Middle-earth, on Adûnaic and Westron and on astronomy and calendar reckoning in illustrated books that are available both as ebooks and in print.

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Mittwoch, 9. August 2017

Tuesday, 8 August 2941 T.A: Butterfly-spotting in the treetops.

Even some British Purple Emperors are
almost as featureless as those of Mirkwood

On this day, in 2941 T. A., the Company descended into a valley of the Woodelves' realm, and when they had arrived on the ground of the depression, Thorin got a very Dwarvish idea: Have Bilbo climb up for a look-around! Anyone else would of course have preferred a hilltop, and the result of this effort was inevitable: Bilbo was not able to look far around and got the subjective impression that Mirkwood had absolutely no limits. Needless to say, his report did nothing to boost the morale of the Dwarves.

He made a keen observation on Mirkwood entomology, however: the discovery of the Black Emperors. This was a native species of butterflies apparently related to the Purple Emperor, apatura iris, of Southern Britain and Central Europe (said to be the second-largest British butterfly species) but without any of the familiar coloured markings. Douglas Anderson remarked on these in "The Annotated Hobbit" but failed to note their less pleasant characteristics: Emperors of any colour avoid "flowers, preferring rotting animal corpses, faeces, mud puddles - and even human sweat.... In Victorian times, the heyday of butterfly collecting, gamekeepers
would attract Purple Emperors down to their gibbets by hanging out
rotting carcasses of crows and rabbits." (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33596341) Such a species certainly comes not entirely unexpected in Mirkwood under Sauron's shadow!